The 2015 European Championships in 1/12 was held at the beautiful Hudy Arena in Trencin, Slovakia. A brand new black carpet had been laid out for the event, which provided good and consistent traction. The track layout was technical and quite unforgiving.
After winning my first EC title in this class last year, I obviously had high expectations going into this yearâ™s event. Even though not having any actual experience with 1/12 at the Hudy Arena, I was familiar some parts of the track layout.
(click to enlarge)
Practice started off well with a good handling car. I was the pace setter, closely followed by my team mate Olly Jefferies. Going into qualifying, I felt confident. I managed to get a good start with a TQ run. Onwards I struggled with consistency and thus had two DNF runs in Q2 and 3. The pressure was on for a good run, and I managed to TQ the 4th and 5th run with some clean driving. As traction levels increased, Juho Levänen had found a good pace and was my closest competitor at the end of qualifying.
Going into Sundays finals, I decided to make a couple of changes to my car. First of all I decreased the tire diameter of my Hot Race Tyres, to make the car smoother in the chicane sections. I also decreased the front wheel offset, to prevent the car from hiking as badly. The difference was really amazing. I knew that I had made the right call to change my car as I immediately felt improved corner speed and forward bite and thus I could win the practice final with ease.
(click to enlarge)
A1 didn't start well as I got a stop and go penalty for a jump start. I did stay calm as I knew my car was good enough to catch up with the leaders. Soon enough I found myself back in the lead and won the final with a big gap to the others. My car was just that good!
A2 was less dramatic as my competitors were involved in some incidents which set them back. I could cruise to overall victory to the joy of the crowd!
(click to enlarge)
Olly Jefferies managed to finish 3rd overall in this tough competition, but unfortunately some electronic problems set him back on more than one occasion. Olly was a strong contender for the title as always. Also impressive to see was the 7th place overall finish by Martin Wollanka, running an X12, even with limited experience in this category.
In the 13.5T blinky stock class, Mike Gosvig managed to take the vice-european champion title after a fantastic performance! From late qualifying and onwards, Mike clearly had the fastest car on the track, setting the fastest qualifying, laptime as well as final time. Unfortunately a few mistakes set him back in the finals but had we found the right setup for his car earlier I do think he would be on top in the end! Hoping to see Mike at more 1/12 events in the future!
Many thanks to Hudy Arena for flawless event organization! Thanks as well to all XRAY team mates for participating. Until next time!
(click to enlarge)
Modified top 10:
1. Alexander Hagberg - XRAY X12
2. Juho Levänen 3. Olly Jefferies - XRAY X12
4. Dominic Vogl
5. Markus Mobers
6. Hupo Hönigl 7. Martin Wollanka - XRAY X12
8. Vesa Yli
9. Mark Stiles
10. Tim Altmann
Stock top 10:
1. Hupo Hönigl 2. Mike Gosvig - XRAY X12'15
3. Brian Wynn
4. Vesa Yli
5. Simon Rubet
6. Christofer Hedlund
7. Ollie Payne
8. Leigh Burton
9. Robert Klier
10. Herbert Weber
